South

This is the last of my series of amazing photos of Fairhaven. This is heading south towards the Chuckanuts. Not much to say today other than a trip may be planned for Victoria tomorrow. A friend might fly over in his little Mooney to pick me up to fly back to Orcas Island to sail to Victoria to spend the night. By his calculation, it's much less fuel (and time, of course) to fly from Bellingham to Orcas Island in his single-engine aircraft versus driving. And that makes sense.

Or we might rent a car and drive to Vancouver. Or there's the string-band jamboree, which I've failed to attend in the four summers I've been here. It is uncanny here how time crawls along, or maybe I am more aware of the value of time as the years inch along also. Running out of summer. Today already smelled of fall.

And something funny on the web I found tonight. It was last year's ballot as Proposition Zero: "Just Say No to Mount Baker Eruption:"

The purpose of the proposed regulatory ordinance would be to better control any volcanic activity by Mount Baker in the name of public safety under the Whatcom County homerule charter insecurity acts of 1872, requiring the mountain to give the county executive a minimum of 24 hours advance written notice of any planned major eruptions, as well as requiring a special short-notice burn permit be obtained from the county fire marshal. Accompanying seismic events, such as glacier melts, mudflows, or luhars, would also require special land-use permits be obtained from the US Forest Service if major land-disturbances were also planned by the mountain.

Public disturbances resulting from the mountain throwing burning rocks at the neighboring countryside, or otherwise displaying undesirable tendencies such as huffing and puffing and blowing off of ash and steam from the (EPA unregulated) steam vents on Mt. Baker's south face, would also require stiff state and EPA registration as a large-source geothermal release site. Explosive and pyrotechnical activities that might bother or alarm the nearby villagers, would be limited to certain wind and humidity conditions under proposed EPA and state DOE rules yet to be formulated.

Proposed yearly fees would start at $500 US, require the mountain post a $1,000,000,000 liability bond with the county, as well as requiring the display of a 'Horseless carriage' license plate, issued by the WA state Dept of Licensing, whenever the more than 40 year old volcano is operating on SR542. A new county enforcement officer paid for by Mt. Baker, will hired by the Whatcom Humane Society solely to handle Mt. Baker Eruption complaints, and will be handling the day-to-day operations at the peak. County officials indicating they would begin interviewing applicants by January 2009, with native Bigfoots with intimate knowledge of the mountain being offered special minority hiring preferences.